I read the book, so why not see the movie?
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#929: Little Fictions – ‘A Matter of Scholarship’ (1955), ‘The Ultimate Clue’ (1960), and ‘The Anomaly of the Empty Man’ (1952) by Anthony Boucher
A slight cheat this week — the final two stories by Anthony Boucher from the collection Exeunt Murderers [ss] (1983), and then, so that we have three stories again this week, the Holmes pastiche ‘The Anomaly of the Empty Man’ (1952) as listed in Adey.
Continue reading#865: There Is Nothing Either Good or Bad, But Thinking Makes It So – Examining the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstones List
If you’ve met me, firstly I apologise, and secondly it’ll come as no surprise that I have a tendency to ruminate on that which many others pass over without so much as a backward glance. Previously this resulted in me writing something in the region of 25,000 words on the Knox Decalogue, and today I’m going to turn my eye upon the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstones list. Prepare thyself…
Continue readingIn GAD We Trust – Episode 23: What’s in a Watson? [w’ Caroline Crampton]
The companion of the fictional detective — the “stupid friend” as Ronald Knox styled them — is something I have spent far too long thinking about, mainly because the protoype is always taken to be Sherlock Holmes’ chronicler Dr. John H. Watson. Joining me this week to discuss why that might not always be a good comparison to draw is Caroline Crampton of the superb Shedunnit podcast.
Continue reading#805: Minor Felonies/Little Fiction – ‘The Adventure of the Single Footprint’ (1948) and ‘The Mystery of the Three Blind Mice’ (1963) by Robert Arthur
The final Tuesday of June brings us the final two stories from Mystery and More Mystery (1966) by Robert Arthur. And with one of them comes some excitement…
Continue readingIn GAD We Trust – Episode 22: On Making a Good First Impression [w’ Sergio @ Tipping My Fedora + Brad @ AhSweetMysteryBlog]
After the interruption to the schedule of two weeks ago, here’s another In GAD We Trust podcast — and given the topic of ‘Making a Good First Impression’ it’s only fitting to welcome returning guests Sergio and Brad.
Continue reading#714: Adventures in Self-Publishing – Death at the Diogenes Club (2017) by Anna Elliott and Charles Veley
Reading this Sherlock Holmes pastiche has perhaps inevitably made me reflect on my history with Sherlock Holmes pastiches.
Continue reading#635: A Taste for Honey (1941) by H.F. Heard
It’s difficult to know where to begin with A Taste for Honey (1941), the first of three ‘Mr. Mycroft’ novels by H.F. Heard. The core conceit is delightfully barmy — I shall avoid naming it in this review to preserve it for the curious — and played with an impressively straight face, but beyond that there’s really only a short story’s worth of content here, spread thinly over 189 generously-margined pages. With only one plot-line, only really three characters, and nothing to widen the universe or engage the mind in any meaningful way past the halfway point (when the ending will already be painfully obvious to anyone), this really is just a latter-day Holmes pastiche with verbal diarrhoea.
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#585: Brother Mine, That Entertain’d Ambition – Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage (2019) by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse
The Invisible Event 